Watch: The Paper Kites - "Bloom"

The fact that "Bloom" is a couple of years old shouldn't dissuade us (or you) from marvelling on the fact that the video had now racked up 2.8 million views on youtube. That -- and another 2.3 million views for their video for "Featherstone" -- probably had something to do with the fact that the band behind the songs, Australia's The Paper Kites, have just been signed for North America by the good folks at Nettwerk. A disarming and unpretentious folk/pop band that originated as the duo of songwriters Sam Bentley and Christina Lacey before expanding to a quintet, The Paper Kites have released two EP's -- Woodland and the more recent Young North -- both of which are now available for download via iTunes and Amazon. Watch the "Featherstone" video after the jump...

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BOY - Mutual Friends

The definitely non-boy Valeska Steiner and Sonja Glass are BOY, a Hamburg-based duo armed with a bundle of smart, often breezy alt-pop songs on their well-received debut album Mutual Friends, already released in Europe and the U.K. and now hitting the U.S. this week. After meeting up at music workshop in Hamburg, Steiner and Glass began writing and performing together and then, over a nearly two and half year period, laying down tracks in Berlin at the home studio of producer and multi-instrumentalist Philipp Steinke. "We made about 10 versions of most of the songs," says Sonja. "So they have evolved over the course of time. And some of them have ended up sounding completely different from the way they began." Mutual Friends alternates easily from brightly colored, uptempo tracks such as "Little Numbers" (youtube video views: 7.5 million - watch below) to the thoughtful introspective "Drive Darling" (stream after the jump) and album closer "July".

BOY - 'This Is the Beginning' (from Mutual Friends)

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Watch: Hey Ocean! - "Sprawl II" (Arcade Fire Cover)

We first tipped you to Vancouver pop/folk trio Hey Ocean! a year ago with the release of their Big Blue Wave EP, the predecessor to 2012's IS full-length (finally arriving stateside January 29 via Nettwerk). Vocalist Ashleigh Ball, bassist/producer David Vertesi and guitarist David Beckingham offered up, we noted at the time, a "juggernaut of oversized, crisp and crunchy pop." We were so taken by the EP's effervescent and completely infectious title track that we went on to feature the video for "Big Blue Wave" earlier this year (watch it below). But Hey Ocean! don't always plays music with an exclamation point in the production and "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains", an Arcade Fire cover from their album The Suburbs, is a prime example. Starting from just Ball's voice and a guitar, the song builds to a full band production including fiddle and brass, all recorded in someone's basement.

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RADAR REDUX: BOY

UPDATE: BOY have been signed to Nettwerk with an early 2013 release scheduled for the debut. From our post in April:

The definitely non-boy Valeska Steiner and Sonja Glass are BOY, a Hamburg-based duo armed with a bundle of smart, often breezy alt-pop songs on their well-received debut album Mutual Friends, released last fall in Germany and Switzerland and the U.K. this past June. After meeting up at music workshop in Hamburg, Steiner and Glass began writing and performing together and then, over a nearly two and half year period, laying down tracks in Berlin at the home studio of producer and multi-instrumentalist Philipp Steinke. "We made about 10 versions of most of the songs," says Sonja. "So they have evolved over the course of time. And some of them have ended up sounding completely different from the way they began." Mutual Friends alternates easily from brightly colored, uptempo tracks such as "Little Numbers (youtube video views: 3.5 6.5 million - watch below) to the thoughtful introspective "Drive Darling" and album closer "July".

BOY - "This Is the Beginning" (from Mutual Friends)

BOY - "Oh Boy" (from Mutual Friends)

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Liam Titcomb - Cicada

Following the intense demise of a relationship, Toronto-based songwriter Liam Titcomb hopped on a plane and headed to London to begin a period of healing, reflection -- and songwriting. New album Cicada (August 7, Nettwerk), is first in five years, is a major step forward for the 25-year-old. "My world opened up immensely while I was over there," says Titcomb. "There weren't any rules when it came to making music. Form and structure went out the window, and the goal was to simply write a great song. You learn the rules and structure. Then, you forget them and just create...It was a great shakeup, and I came home with some very different songs." Produced by instrumentalist and co-writer Jay Joyce (Patty Griffin, The Wallflowers) and recorded in Nashville, Cicada is striking collection of memorable and accomplished pop/folk tracks that we think deserves wider exposure in the U.S. For beginners, check out the John Mayer-meets-Fleetwood-Mac "Love Don't Let Me Down" and the jangling, buskery "Landslide", the song that originally got Titcomb signed to Nettwerk. Full bio below.

Liam Titcomb - "Love Don't Let Me Down" (from Cicada)

Liam Titcomb - "Landslide" (from Cicada)

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RADAR: Family of the Year

L.A.'s Family of the Year really do keep the familial concept an integral part of who the are. Sure, frontman Joe Keefe and drummer Sebastian Keefe are brothers but there's also a communal spirit that flows through the heart of the band's brightly spangled alt-pop. Reminiscent at times of the irony-free campfire choruses of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros (with whom FOTY has toured), the band's effervescent songs reflect more hippie high organics than hipster posing urbanities. New single "Stairs" is another glimpse of the Family's forthcoming debut longplayer, a multi-voiced, lyrically stream-of-consciousness anthem that falls somewhere between some bongwater version of Up With People and a U2-backed cast of Hair. (Plus we give them a gold star for the line "on the doorstep, on the door fucking step") For more sunny delights, check out the impossibly hooky title track to last year's "St. Croix" EP -- a song that will also resurface on the band's debut album Loma Vista (release date TBA July 10, Nettwerk). Videos below.

Family of the Year - "Stairs" (from the album Loma Vista)

Family of the Year - "St. Croix" (from the St. Croix EP)

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